The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug

The final installment of the Hobbit trilogy, The Battle of the Five Armies, has finally hit the U.S. theaters, and Peter Jackson has been doing the rounds to promote the movie, however, that’s not all he’s been talking about. It’s no secret that The Hobbit movies have received their fair share of criticism for myriad reasons; but one of the most ubiquitous critiques, has been Jackson‘s heavy reliance on CGI effects, as opposed to the practical effects that he used in The Lord of the Rings trilogy. However, coming off the back of these criticisms, Jackson has been ruffling feathers in the contemporary movie-making world with his critique on the state of the industry today; the Hollywood zeitgeist if you like, and it’s all rather dumbfounding indeed. (more…)

Having spent the best part of 15 years in Middle-earth filming six films, it’s easy to see how Peter Jackson will be having a hard time saying goodbye to J.R.R. Tolkien‘s world of hobbits, dragons, elves, orcs and the magical world of Middle-earth. However it turns out that Jackson may be suffering to let go; harboring a ‘never-say-never’ complex, which is further testament of his reluctance so say good-bye to the franchise completely. (more…)

Why wait or the official release of Peter Jackson‘s The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies trailer later today when you can watch the leaked version now? Better check it out quick though, those hobbit lawyers will mercilessly crush this leak under their knobby, hairy toes. (more…)

The last in Peter Jackson‘s Hobbit trilogy, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is scheduled to hit theaters screens later this year on December 17th. There hasn’t been a lot of production stills, clips, or even a teaser trailer yet, but Warner Brothers has recently released the official synopsis for the movie. (more…)

Comedy Central‘s Stephen Colbert may be satirizing right-wing pundits on his popular talk show, but his nerdity is by no means fictional–particularly where the works of J.R.R. Tolkien are concerned. Indeed, LOTR/Hobbit director Peter Jackson even declared the writer-comedian the biggest “Tolkien Geek” he’d ever met.

THR and Playboy had previously indicated that Colbert might make an appearance in The Hobbit: The Desolation Of Smaug….Today, we have visual confirmation from a sharp-eyed Redditor in GIF and screencap form (after the jump). (more…)

Evangeline Lilly plays a character never created by J.R.R. Tolkien in The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. Considering that the elf warrior Tauriel has created by Peter Jackson and his collaborators from scratch, it would make sense that the actress asked to play her would have some kind of input into making her character. As it turned out, Lilly had only one caveat for playing Tauriel, and it was a promise that eventually had to be broke when the Hobbit trilogy went into reshoots last year. So what was the promise, and how was it broke? (more…)

Nerd Bastard’s Matthew Jackson wrote an on-the-money review of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug. You can read it HERE. I mirror many of Matt’s thoughts. DOS was no doubt an upscale from the first Hobbit film.The highest points being (and there are quite a few) are the action sequences; the barrel escape, the spiders, Necromancer and Smaug (who looked and sounded astonishing). There really isn’t a boring moment, and even if there was, you’d be too distracted by the visual eye candy to notice (FX are near perfect). The common complaint, though, is that it’s a tad overloaded and really drawn out (some scenes were way longer than they needed to by). Trying to spread out content from a 300 page book into a trilogy of 3 hour movies was certainly felt this time around. On the other hand, Tolkien wrote an epic novel. Can’t expect anything less than an epic series of movies, right? However over extended it might be, it offers quantity just as much as quality which isn’t very present in most films today. Personally I think the film is fantasy escapism at it’s finest. Experiences like this are why we go to the movies. That’s my two cents anyway. How about yours?

We wanna know what you think. You can use the comments below to write your mini-review of the film. Have at thee!

We’ll never really get over the stigma that comes with Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, even if we want to. This is the guy who tied the record for Oscars in a single night with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King, so he’s obviously got a very high bar to clear. This is the guy who made Middle-earth real in our cinematic minds. This is the guy who managed to film an unfilmable story. So, how are we supposed to expect him to live up to that? There are a number of answers for this, ranging from optimistic to downright hostile, but mine is simple: we’re not. Where The Lord of the Rings was a fantasy adventure wrapped in a world-in-the-balance epic, The Hobbit is adventure in its purest form. Jackson’s embracing that, and though he’s trying too hard to give his latest cinematic saga weight, we can still glean a lot of fun from the Hobbit franchise even without the connections to its big brother, and the latest installment, The Desolation of Smaug, definitely proves that.

It’s the end of the year, and you know what that means: lots and lots of Best and Worst lists! True, but it also means that awards season is just around the corner. Today, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences, AKA: the people who give out the Oscars, announced their short list of 10 potential nominees for the Best Visual Effects category, and you’ll notice a definite nerdy trend amongst the ten films that will be vying for that golden trophy early next year. (more…)

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